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Ecosummit Producer

Carla Westerheide

Carla is a freelance journalist focusing on the renewable energy and (electric) mobility sector. She holds a degree in Journalism from Cal State Long Beach, as well as a Masters in European politics from New York University. Carla worked for the international TV and radio stations France 24 and RFI and now focuses on online media. After living in LA, Paris, New York and Berlin, she moved to Lübeck, where she also manages the co-working space cloudsters.

Startups not only got to pitch to and network with potential investors at Ecosummit Berlin 2017, they also got some valuable lessons on how to do it right. Leonie Baneke from Eneco Smart Energy gets sent lots of startup pitch decks, asking her for capital. This is the second year in a row Eneco has sponsored Ecosummit and Baneke says, they were part of the event since the beginning of their corporate venturing activities to look for cool and challenging ideas to invest in. The Dutch have money to spend, allocating 10 to 30 million euros per year to invest in external startups, follow-on investments and internal startups.

One Peak Partners and Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital are on board. Together, the private equity firms invest 22 million euros in Berlin-based EcoIntense. The late stage software startup has been cashflow positive since 2012 and even debt free since 2014. But “it’s almost like an old saying: you should have a financing round, when you don’t need any cash,” Markus Becker, Co-founder of EcoIntense explained his reason for raising capital anyhow.

275 startups and investors flocked to Ecosummit Berlin 2017 to pitch their ideas, to network and to discuss a common vision for the future. Under the motto “Smart green unicorns made in Europe”, a total of 95 speakers took to the stage – including 61 startups, all looking for funding or partners to help their ideas grow. “Our investors are all innovative, creative and share our vision,” Christoph Ostermann from Sonnen explains. “And that is very important from my point of view.” The young German company offers solar energy storage for private homes, and allows private solar energy producers to share excess energy within the so-called sonnenCommunity. Sonnen is not far from becoming a unicorn itself. “Our revenue in 2016 was 42 million euros and we increased our capital by 76 million euros last year,” says Ostermann. And while he is not currently looking to raise new capital, he loves attending the Ecosummit to meet with current investors and potential partners. “Five of our seven investors are here this year, and over the years, I initially met all five investors at Ecosummit, who ended up investing in our Series A, B, C and D.”